"Android fans, especially those of you who love your Samsung devices, might have something to cheer about today as it looks like Chinese phone maker GooPhone have already patented the design of the new iPhone 5 before Apple have had chance!" This is just... Wow.

yeah cross licensing...which just like price fixing lets you lock new guys out of the market. Did you think about it before you posted?

Would you care for an example? Loongson Dragon chip. Its a MIPS chip that has hardware accelerated X86 emulation, cool huh? Think about that for a second, battery life like ARM, yet the ability to run the X86 apps you need at 80% of native speed thanks to hardware X86 instructions.

Problem is thanks to cross licensing only 3 companies on the planet are allowed to use those instructions, Intel, AMD, and Via. And the odds of YOU or Loongson getting a license? Try zip, zilch, nada.

So you see the problem with cross licensing is it lets the big boys, who have enough patents in their warchests to make MAD a real possibility, cover their own behinds, while at the same time locking little start ups like Loongson from getting a foot in the door.